VENICE — Authorities went looking for a registered sex offender Tuesday and instead found two small children living in deplorable conditions, according to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, which claims the children’s mother was high on prescription medication and not caring for her kids.

Donnalee Elizabeth Ballard, 22, invited deputies into her trailer around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to wait for James Russell Denegall, 36, who had violated his probation on lewd or lascivious and sexual battery charges, and was living with Ballard.

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